Monday, July 10, 2006

Until 2010

Less than a fortnight ago, when English hopes were still high for a place in the quarterfinals of the World Cup, I took these photographs in Trafalgar Square. The England team had just beaten Sweden and throngs of drunken youth, some naked and wrapped in the flag of St. George, all flocked to Trafalgar Square and partied in the fountain.

It got me thinking about the World Cup as an interesting measure of time. In 1998, I was working a summer job while home from my first degree at U of T and I remember frenzied Dutch tourists all crowding around a tv screen we had put up to watch the Netherlands game. Then in 2002, the first summer of my first real grown-up job, I remember being surprised by screaming Korean fans in a restaurant in Toronto's Little Korea with John, as Korea made it to the semi-finals. And then this summer, watching the festivities in London by the National Gallery as I was on holiday during the last year of my Ph.D. Where will I be in 2010? As seeing a World Cup match live and visiting South Africa are both on my List of Things To Do Before I Die, perhaps I will even be at the big event...